Although a lot of people are frightened by
them, some keep snakes as exotic pets at home. Most of the time snake owners
would usually keep their pets in separated containers since they are not really
social animals. In addition, they could end up eating each other if placed
inside a single box and fight over their food. But in very rare cases, owners
face a dilemma of having to take care of a snake that has two heads in one
body.
A common Albino Honduran Milk Snake named
Medusa has a very uncommon mutation. She has axial bifurcation, which is a rare
case of two heads that are attached and independent able to manipulate a single
body. Cases like these happen when monozygotic twins do not complete the
process of splitting. In the wild, these bicephalic snakes usually don’t live
long, however they can be just fine when taken care of in captivity.
Since both heads think differently, it’s
absolutely impossible to even guess how each of the heads will act. Although
you might think that after being born together the heads would get used to
having one another around, they’re technically still two different snakes.
Feeding time can be a problem since they both will need to eat even though the
nutrient from the food is going to be shared. Each brain picks up hunger
signals and each of them decides that they want to eat. This leads to them
fighting over food, so feeding them means that both heads will need to be fed
to avoid conflict.
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